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Hartford’s Goodwin Square Gets Final Order Before Foreclosure

By Kenneth R. Gosselin

June 05, 2012

Northland Investment Corp., Greater Hartford’s largest landlord, is now on the brink of losing a second office building in downtown Hartford to foreclosure.

A judgment of strict foreclosure against Goodwin Square — the last order before an owner loses control of a property — has been handed down by a judge in Superior Court in Hartford, nearly two years after the property fell into foreclosure.

Northland couldn’t be immediately be reached for comment.

The court decision was not accompanied by any other filings, but those are expected to come later. Typically, after a judgment of strict foreclosure, a property owner is given a deadline for satisfying a debt, or in this case, securing new financing to replace a $33 million mortgage that matured in October, 2010.

Goodwin Square, which Northland purchased for $41 million in 2005, includes the now-closed Goodwin Hotel and a 30-story office Asylum Street tower. The hotel was shuttered in 2008.

Commercial real estate landlords have had a tough time refinancing mortgages, especially those that have been packaged as portfolios and sold to investors. That was the case with Goodwin and the nearby CityPlace II office tower, also threatened with foreclosure.

The Newton, Mass.-based real estate company already has lost Metro Center on Church Street to foreclosure.

Northland is appealing a judgment of strict foreclosure in the CityPlace II matter. That option also looms as a possibility for Goodwin Square.

The Goodwin Square and CityPlace II foreclosures turned nasty, with Northland accusing LNR, the mortgage serving firm handling both the foreclosures, of acting in bad faith by improperly holding one office building hostage over the other as Northland tries to renegotiate its loans.

Northland isn’t the only landlord entangled in foreclosure, unable to refinance a mortgage. The mortgage on the office portion of the former G. Fox & Co. building on Main Street also has fallen into foreclosure.